NASCAR Cup Series: Talladega sees most lead changes since 2014
By Asher Fair
Talladega Superspeedway featured the most lead changes that the NASCAR Cup Series has seen since the 2014 season both from an individual race standpoint and a season-long standpoint.
Restrictor plate races are no longer truly “restrictor plate races” due to the introduction of the new rules packages ahead of the 2019 NASCAR Cup Series season.
But we saw in late April at Talladega Superspeedway that that did not prevent the traditional “restrictor plate tracks” from producing pack racing with lots of passing, lead changes and attrition, and we saw that again in early July at Daytona International Speedway.
The former featured 38 lead changes among 15 drivers, and the latter, which was shortened by rain, still featured 24 lead changes among 14 drivers.
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The playoff race at the four-turn, 2.66-mile (4.281-kilometer) high-banked Talladega Superspeedway oval in Lincoln, Alabama featured 46 lead changes among 19 drivers.
The increase in closing rate produced by the new package for the superspeedway races is what has resulted in these increased lead change totals after several years of rather lackluster totals in this category.
No Cup Series race had featured 46 lead changes since the May race at Talladega Superspeedway in the 2014 season featured 48, and no track had featured 84 lead changes in a season since Talladega Superspeedway featured 86 in the 2014 season, as the October race at the track that year featured 38 lead changes.
From the 2015 season to the 2018 season, 37 lead changes was the highest lead change for a single race, and it happened in the May race at Talladega Superspeedway in the 2016 season and in the Daytona 500 at Daytona International Speedway in the 2017 season.
As far as a single track is concerned, Daytona International Speedway featured 70 lead changes throughout the 2017 season, the highest during this four-year span. At Talladega Superspeedway, 68 lead changes in a single season was the highest throughout these four seasons, and it happened in 2016.
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As a whole, the new rules packages have improved the racing throughout the 2019 NASCAR Cup Series season, although there are still some tracks where it has not changed much, if not made the racing worse.
Superspeedways have been among the tracks to see improvements. This year’s playoff race at Talladega Superspeedway was almost not comparable to last year’s, which was basically a Stewart-Haas Racing parade that featured only 15 lead changes and a winning pass that stemmed from the leader running out of fuel.